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runaway shipping cost on fleaBay

Shipping is like health care. We have no idea what it really costs.

"$4.95 shipping" from all of the web sites, yet, yea, it's $20, $30, $40 at the FedEx and UPS stores. it's like we're not asking the right questions. "Is there a speakeay shipping center someplace?"
 
I recently shipped a large box to my granddaughter in Salt Lake City. The box didn't weigh much, as it contained a stuffed doll and some Christmas ornaments. My first stop was the post office and they wanted about $75. The clerk said "you are paying for the size, not the weight". I refused and took it to UPS where the story was the same, but the cost was $65. Outrageous but out of options.
 
Packaging matters a lot, too. We routinely ship tapes and the standard one cubic foot "book box" seems to take advantage of Fedex's rates. 10 tapes per box, about 25 lbs. Shipping more in larger boxes costs more for some reason.
 
whartung said:
Shipping is like health care. We have no idea what it really costs.

"$4.95 shipping" from all of the web sites, yet, yea, it's $20, $30, $40 at the FedEx and UPS stores. it's like we're not asking the right questions. "Is there a speakeay shipping center someplace?"
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This seems to be very true.

Just looking at standard-ish sized software boxes on eBeh, reported shipping costs can be all over the place. One seller might show $10 dollars, and another $25 dollars. Of course, when the item itself is only worth about $20, it is not worth it.
 
UPS appears reasonable when you use their coupon code and pre-buy online. But it does appear larger boxes have become exponentially more expensive regardless.
 
UPS and FedEx tend to be cheaper if the destination is near one of their hubs. But if it's in a rural area, they hand it over to USPS to take care of the local delivery (they call it "SmartPost"), so you can get a better deal by just using USPS directly.

Also, with UPS and FedEx, delivery to a business address is substantially cheaper than to a residential address -- but of course, "cheaper" is relative. Shipping cross-country is always going to be expensive no matter which method you use.
 
LtoL truck freight can be stupid expensive as well. I use the local packaging store to receive palletized shipments. Much cheaper, as they have contracts with the major freight outfits. They get the shipment, you bring your pickup.
 
If you belong to some professional or veteran organization you might qualify for a discount from UPS or FedEx. Pays to check.

Post office is trying to do away with 1st class packages, IMHO, anything over 10 ounces now gets kicked up to Priority Mail rate. They also used to provide free Priority Mail boxes plus a different but still free Priority "Flat Rate" boxes and the last time I tried to use one of my old non-flat rate boxes that was nearly empty they told me it was now going to cost me the same as the flat rate box cost. Don't know if this is universal or just that one clerk that screwed me. Of course, I've also made out receiving bags of lead shot via flat rate boxes since they weighted over 50 lbs per box shipped at the flat rate. Package insurance is another ripoff if you read the terms and conditions. Often the payout is based upon weight and not purchased value and trying to get paid back may require a bunch of lawyers and extra good luck too.

The big retailer "free shipping" shows up in product pricing too. Plus how you shop on their sites can change the price of some items. You and I may pay completely different amounts depending upon how their computers think that we will be willing to pay.

So pricing of many things don't make sense.
 
Looking on USPS's web site, they still provide free, non-Flat-Rate Priority Mail boxes of various shapes and sizes, but local post offices may have decided to no longer carry them in stock, because free stuff tends to walk away and never get used for its intended purpose. I remember when they started printing "Priority Mail" on the inside of their free boxes, because people would turn them inside-out and use them for cheaper first-class or parcel post shipping.
 
I believe you can order FRB's by the 10-pack at USPS.com with no shipping cost.

At least I was able to 6 months ago.
 
Just came from the local post office and the kiosk for the FRB's was empty. Bought a roll of stamps for $55 and asked for 3 or 4 large FRB's. The postal lady behind the counter disappeared for a few minutes and came back with 3 of them. So, sometimes you just need to ask.
 
For years I have been buying slot cars from eBay in the UK to be shipped to the US. Lately I looked and the postage (from the same sellers) has more than doubled in less than a year.
 
Grandcheapskate said:
For years I have been buying slot cars from eBay in the UK to be shipped to the US. Lately I looked and the postage (from the same sellers) has more than doubled in less than a year.
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Trump threatened to leave the Universal Postal Union unless they allowed the US to set their own prices for handling incoming international mail - mainly because he's a moron who doesn't have a clue how the USPS or international postage works. As a result every other country has had to raise the price for mail to the US, and that's been passed on to the customer. A year ago I could send small items UK->US for only slightly more than sending them to Ireland or France. Now mail to the US is more expensive that it is to Australia.

https://www.themailingroom.com/royal-mail-adds-world-zone-3/
 
Some treaties (like with China) are so once sided that the USPS is basically delivering millions of packages from them for free (and our shipping to them in very low).
 
Unknown_K said:
Some treaties (like with China) are so once sided that the USPS is basically delivering millions of packages from them for free (and our shipping to them in very low).
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I think this type of thing pushes local shipping cost and shipping export costs upwards. Because the total cost of deliveries has to be accounted for, so effectively, as a result of receiving large amounts of cheap shipments from China that cannot be billed as highly, these have to be effectively cross subsidised by any other shipments we pay for in our own countries.

It is an odd parallel with the notion that a cheap overseas made product is better to buy than a local one. It looks good in the short term, but when local factories close down and people go out of work, the damage to local economies is not worth it, the unemployed person can then barely afford to buy the cheap imported product.

I guess it is the old argument whether "globalisation" is a good idea or not.

There are a lot of winners and losers in it. I have seen the effects of it destroy local industries in Australia. We once had AWA which made appliances for Australians since 1912. They also built nearly all of RCA's vacuum tubes. When the import tariffs were dropped in the 1970's, AWA ultimately went broke due to imports from Japan and later China. At one point, AWA was manufacturing transistors and IC's too and now we cannot do that here. Also we had a bolt company Ajax Bolts, went bust due to cheap imported bolts & nuts. The iconic Holden car company wast lost too. I think their first model came out in 1948.

One thing now, we cannot design and build own own 5G network here, unless we buy all the IC's / parts from China or buy pre-made equipment. Now the government is worried about spying with imbedded snooping tech in IC's we can barely understand or detect. It is sad to the extent that we have so degraded our own industrial complex by not protecting our borders from cheap imports, that we no longer have as much advanced electronics tech for anyone to spy on and we have become dependent customers.
 
Silicon valley these days is just about mining people and data and not making ANYTHING (and quite a few of the workers even there are not locals).

Offshoring production is what made a few people billionaires and the rest of us broke.
 
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